Family Affair: Gatlin family brings in largest gator on second night of season

(Press-Register/Jeff Dute)Coty Gatlin, left, killed his first alligator on the last night of the first split of the 2009 season on the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. His brother, Brent, middle, also killed a gator earlier in the weekend. Also pictured are mom, Jodi, and dad, David. All are from Stapleton.

Members of the Gatlin family from Stapleton do everything together, including hunting alligators on the Mobile-Tensaw Delta.

"It's a family affair every year," said dad David Gatlin. "We do pretty much everything together."

With David and Jodi Gatlin's sons Coty and Brent holding tags for the 2009 season on the Delta, they knew it might be a tough task to fill both with the kind of quality animal they were after.

Turns out, it wasn't so tough.

Coty Gatlin's impressive 12-foot, 2-inch, 539-pound gator was the largest of only six weighed in over the last night of the first split of the season. Brent Gatlin brought an 11-foot, 11-inch, 455-pound animal to the scales earlier in the weekend. David Gatlin filled a tag during last year's hunt.

One of the first keys to successfully taking quality animals is to find out where they live. The Gatlins had that covered.

Coty Gatlin said they spotted the gator in Bear Creek only 400 yards from where Brent Gatlin got his. After spotting it and waiting it out for about two hours, Coty Gatlin made short work of dispatching it.

"Not even 10 minutes after we spotted him, he went down and we sat on him for two hours," said Coty Gatlin, who was using bow-fishing gear. "When he came back up, we got close and my first shot hit him in the spine right behind the head."

When the arrow struck, David Gatlin said the big gator "bellied up" and they were able to quickly secure it to the boat and dispatch it with one shotgun blast. The animal was so big, however, they had to call for help from another hunting crew to roll it into the boat.

"We went every night and had a blast," Jodi Gatlin said. "It's very addicting going gator hunting." That seemed to be the consensus among many of the hunters interviewed and overheard at the weigh station throughout the weekend.

While a lot of people were out the first two nights according to conservation department personnel working the hunt on the water, participation was way down the last night.

"Some folks may have had to be at work Monday morning, but it was probably the threat of bad weather that had the biggest impact," said District V supervising wildlife biologist Chuck Sharp, who worked the scales Sunday night through Monday morning.

Overall, 47 alligators were killed over the weekend, highlighted by Matt Thornton's 13-foot, 5-inch, 701-pound
new state record that was brought in early Saturday morning. Of that total, only nine were female.

The second segment of the season runs from 8 p.m. Friday to 6 a.m. Saturday, 8 p.m. Saturday to 6 a.m. Sunday
and 8 p.m. Sunday to 6 a.m. Monday.